JB Digital Art Blog

The Real Battle Is Within You As I sit down to write, battles and fires are raging across America's cities and in me. Jesus said that the hearts of many would grow cold in the last days because evil would become rampant and people would say "Yes" when they really mean "No", and a Lie would be considered a Truth. We appear to be in such a time and place as he described, and I, like many of you, find myself growing weary and cold, having weathered this evil generation, watching the deterioration since my birth. Coldness seems like a place of refuge in such a case, and Hate is following her lead; both are deterrents to fighting well and surviving. I want to fight well and to do more than survive; I want to thrive! So it follows that I don't want to grow Cold or fall into the dark well of Hate. It appears the first battle is spiritual, as the battleground is invisible in the Heart and Mind. We are instructed by Christ's Apostles to ready ourselves for ba...

For me, abandoned places are not sites of gloom, but vessels that carry the past into the present. They are mysterious and beautiful, speaking in quiet volumes to the deepest parts of my soul. This image reveals a place that once lived only in my imagination, now brought to life in yours. How marvelous that the unseen can be shared. Across the world, abandoned cathedrals are taking on new forms—transformed into hotels, flea markets, coffee shops, or swallowed by the march of time. In my fictional vision of Duke Chapel in Durham, NC, its walls crumble as the world around it changes. Some may call this morbid, but to me it is an awakening—a reminder of the fragile line between life and death, presence and absence. From these places, I have learned the brevity of life, the inevitability of its final breath, and the necessity of moving forward. I now see the past not as loss, but as a celebration of existence. For even in its passing, I lived—and I live still, to remember.

If you've taken stock of how this pandemic has thrown the state of our world's finances, health, politics, religion, entertainment, and personal lives into disarray, you may be tempted to lose all hope in this world. Good! Maybe that's the prize you receive for losing all false hope in what has always been hopelessly trying to be your sense of stability and personhood. Maybe it’s your time to proclaim your freedom from a misguided and broken system. Then maybe, like the man healed by Jesus of blindness, you will begin to look around you; what do you see? As you surely know, ask yourself, who or what can you work with around you? Ask the Lord to open your eyes so that you might see beyond your doubt and despair. It will be then that you will see that the fields are ripe and the sun is up. In the New Testament, the Gospel of John, chapter 14, Jesus said, "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If...

You find yourself in an abandoned train car; outside the door is outer space; your head is swirling as  Rod Serling  narrates your experience. “You've entered  The Twilight Zone ” I took this original photo of a retired train car at  Pollen Park in Raleigh, NC .  My interpretation of the subject follows the train as it enters its twilight of life; outside are no longer heard the sounds of people hustling to make the noon train, it's now replaced with the sounds of night creatures and the solar winds. The door is open allowing light reflected off the moon to fill the car with a pale light revealing the reds and washing out the blues. Peering out the door she can see stars hanging in the darkness like beacons beckoning travelers to come and see. But no soul peers from the window and dreams of visiting the distant lights for this train is fixed and will never visit the lights for it has traveled its last track; the hiss of steam and its warm breath is no l...